Sparking and Leading Innovation

1. Sparking and Leading Innovation Women’s Leadership InstituteDecember 5-8, 2010 Kathryn J. DeissACRL Content Strategistkdeiss@ala.org Photo by Tom Oliver

2. Who is innovative? Photo by kelsmith1992

3. Creative Inventions Lightning Rounds - 60 seconds Create an invention using your card and someone else’s 2. Write it down on back of card 3. Find another person and repeat 4. Find another person and repeat

4. Changing perspective jogs the creative impulse

5. The Adjacent Possible :a concept describing the power of combinatory connections/collisions Coined by scientist Stuart Kaufmann and cited in Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson

6. “Innovation is the embodiment, combination, and/or synthesis of knowledge in novel, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.”Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap

7. Innovations are those things that change the way we can do what we want to do • Innovation is disruptive • Innovation is both revolutionary and evolutionary • Society decides what is innovative

8. Directional vs. intersectional innovation • Directional innovation combines ideas within a field • Intersectional innovation combines ideas at the intersections of different fields resulting in an increased level of possibilities Source: Johanssen, Frans. The Medici Effect Photo by Brandon Cirillo

9. More stuff on the table! Photo by Lucy Lou

10. “Different is not always better but better is always different.”Rick LuceEmory University

11. Barriers to innovation • Organizational age • Individual & group skills lacking • Desire for perfection • Risk aversion • Natural tensions & dichotomies Photo by remuz

12. Innovation and org. age • Mature organization • proven track record • established resources • less likely to take risks • less flexible • reliance on and replication of past successful practices • improvisation more difficult • Young organization • sparse track record • volatile resources • more likely to risk • more flexible • no past to replicate • natural improvisation

13. Innovation Skills Photo by James.Robertson

14. Skills related to innovation • Right brain thinking • Play and non-verbal skills • Idea generating skills and tools • Leadership skills • Observation and analytical skills • Ability to question • Prototyping

15. Sometimes you have to bust something up to achieve a breakthrough! Photo by moqub

16. The desire for perfection interrupts the flow of innovation Photo by Leo Reynolds

17. Risk Aversion Photo by anarchosyn

18. Dichotomies • Stability • Standards • Expertise • Performance • Certainty • Disturbance • Unknown consequences & patterns • Play • Practice • Risk

19. Lessons from Nonprofit Innovators Center on mission Lower barriers to external collaboration Embrace volatility Harvest external support Change the prevailing winds

20. Operate “just beyond the possible.” Source: Paul C. Light “Sustaining Innovation” Photo by Bee Skutch

21. “You don’t see the world as it is; you see it as you are.” Luc deBrabandere Photo by in da mood

22. Political implications Cornelis Drebbel and £20,000 (1624) • Societal readiness • Patterns of behavior • Political climate • Building the message

23. “Innovation is the embodiment, combination, and/or synthesis of knowledge in novel, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services.”Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap

24. What are the political implications of some innovations your unit has tried or wishes to try? • Who needs to buy-in? • What timing issues exist? • What is the readiness for the innovation?

25. Practices for Innovation • Identifying question/opportunity • Voluminous idea generation • Use of creative thinking tools • Tolerance for failure and time lags or jumps • Escaping “the end of..” syndrome; embracing “the beginning of..” way of thinking

26. Prototyping: a new skill

27. Prototyping • Observation of people & situations • Trials and tests • Three dimensional aspect • Inventive • Feedback loops

28. “Quick prototyping is about acting before you have got the answers… Good prototypes don’t just communicate, they persuade.”Tom Kelley, IDEO

29. What’s in a name? the GGNRA’s transformation by prototype From Golden Gate National Recreation AreatoGolden Gate National Parks Design by Michael Schwab

30. Use the unexpected to your advantage Photo by yepperdoodle

31. Photo by fixpert! Johnny Lee Chung:a case of unintended consequences http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/

32. Think of something in your department or institution that could benefit from a new prototype name or image As a group share projects and do a quick idea sort on one of these situations

33. Innovation Incubators Photo by Loensis

34. Innovation incubators • Places - physical & virtual • Skills - play, ideating, prototyping • Practices - processes and tools • Technologies - emerging tools for delivering and testing services

35. Planning an Innovation Incubator Use the planning handout to think through setting up an innovation incubator - let your imagination play! Discuss your planning thoughts with two other people in the room

36. Some Final Thoughts • We need to seek intersections • We need to engage in trial and error and prototyping • We need to adopt multiple perspectives • We need to face into the outside world

37. “The most successful people are those who are willing to give up their most successful strategies….”Richard Foster

38. Thank you! Keep in touch!kdeiss@ala.org